Hiring managers can be a little narcissistic. When interviewing job candidates, they favor people who remind them of themselves over those who are most qualified. They're not alone: Everyone's got a streak of narcissism to some degree. But hiring managers directly influence who works at your company, so it's a good idea to keep their self-love in check. Yet the standard interview process does the exact opposite. Unless you're Google, your hiring process probably looks something like this: Interviewers bring in candidates, ask a few questions, do way too much of the talking, and give jobs to the people they like the most (translation: the people most similar to them). Unsurprisingly, a high percentage of these "mini-me" hires turn out to be duds. By the time you realize someone is a bad fit, you've wasted resources, upset clients, and frustrated your other employees. Fortunately, you can avoid all these problems by integrating screening and performance tests into the interview process. Test drives for potential hires Companies often rely on personality tests and social media screening to weed out lackluster candidates. But personality tests are poor predictors of whether people will perform well, and candidates know that potential employers scrutinize social media, so they craft their Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn profiles carefully. Their online personas may not align with who they are in real life. If you really want to know whether someone is a fit, you need to run better tests. The first step toward identifying high-quality candidates is comparing them to the best people in their fields. My company does this by using a list of top performers in other agencies and assessing applicants alongside their standout peers. We analyze how similar their behaviors, motivations, [...]